This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

It’s the dead of winter in Afghanistan, many months away from the Taliban’s annual spring fighting season.

Yet a fatal whiff of what may be coming blew hard into the eastern city of Jalalabad Wednesday, far ahead of schedule, leaving seven members of the Afghan security forces dead and 11 others injured after a four-hour gun battle.

Farther west, Afghan soldiers were able to foil an attempted suicide car bomb attack in Helmand province, just before it reached a local market in the city of Lashkar Gah.

Winter isn’t what it used to be anymore, not for the still-fragile government Canada and its allies battled alongside for so many brutal years.

And the situation is almost certain to get worse when the real spring arrives in May, melting free the high-mountain gateways from Pakistan. The trajectory of gloom follows a truly awful 2015, a year that saw the surging Taliban inflict a record toll on Afghan forces, killing or injuring an estimated 16,000 soldiers and policemen. The Afghan news agency ToloNews came up with a count of its own on Wednesday, tabulating 9,996 “security and terrorist incidents” for the year — 1,000 of them in May alone.

Article Continued Below

Wednesday’s strike in Jalalabad was claimed by the Taliban’s media-savvy rival, the Islamic State, which now is believed to have a foothold in at least four Afghan provinces — a significant enough presence that the Taliban last year turned its own guns on the group to maintain its place in the militant pecking order.

Yale University researcher Jason Lyall, writing Tuesday in the Washington Post, laid out his own assessment of Afghanistan’s increasingly lonely crisis amid the drawdown of U.S. troops and air power. “Afghanistan is not ‘lost,’ if countries can ever be lost, but Americans should be alarmed,” said Lyall.

Will Canadians be alarmed? Or have we already consigned to oblivion the collective memory of our country’s longest — and easily most confounding — war?

The mood in Kabul, though hardly buoyant, remains fixed on 2016 as a turning point, one way or another. Hamid Karzai’s successor, President Ashraf Ghani, needs something — anything — to show for his sustained courtship of neighbouring Pakistan, which continues to wield immense influence (a “double-game” to many) over strongest of the Taliban factions.

Earlier this week, another attempt at igniting peace talks saw the U.S., China, Pakistan and Afghanistan officials huddle late into the night in Islamabad. The ball got punted slightly down the road.

One highly placed source close to President Ghani, speaking on condition his name not be published, told The Star the mood of gloom is overblown. Hope remains that combined pressure from the U.S. and China will yield something tangible before spring, a ceasefire of sorts. Among the scenarios Kabul envisions, China’s pledge of major infrastructure investment, including a badly needed overhaul and expansion of Pakistan’s electrical grid, will prove a multi-billion-dollar carrot too tempting not to grab.

“Afghan security forces suffered terribly in 2015 — but so too did the Taliban,” the Afghan government source told The Star.

“It was expected that attacks would increase in the run-up to peace talks. But we also anticipate a serious change from Pakistan, as the leverage, including economic prospects, are brought to bear.”

Afghan forces, in a year that saw a major drawdown of U.S. troops, managed to hold the country’s major urban centres throughout 2015, with the exception of Kunduz, which fell, briefly, to the Taliban before it Kabul restored control. But President Ghani’s request for Afghan patience is wearing thin.

White House officials envisioned reducing by half the 10,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan during 2016. Kabul now is confident the pullout will be delayed, with little or no drawdown until 2017, at the earliest.

“Afghan leaders understand the time for hope is now. We are determined to deliver on our promises, and that means finding a way forward with Pakistan as a partner,” said the official.

“But we are also on the same page with the U.S., when it comes to security, which wasn’t the case a few years ago. There’s a good understanding now that however this year unfolds, our police and soldiers and the NDS (intelligence service) are poised and ready to respond to the absolute worst.”

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com